calm before the storm
by aleushadrake
Summary: she is unable to be still for even for a moment. she is a chain of steel twisting and turning. how long until she breaks?


i am posting this here cause number one i stayed up til three am last night for no reason other than to write this, also i woke up at 6 so, there was really no need for sleep at all when you think about it.

anyway im hoping that you guys will like this cause i kind of hate being the only one on my ship

mordecaya all the way!

_**calm before the storm**_

It is never empty, never still or silent. Always someone is here walking breathing living. It must not be left unguarded.

The knights of Pandora, as Tina has taken to calling them. Them. Those that fight on even when their treasure was found, fought and destroyed. They remain when there is nothing here for them, naught but each other. The choice to leave is there, its always there, across the tundra in the form of an overly expensive shuttle. The price keeps the citizens trapped, but the hunters here behave as if leaving is simply not an option. For Lilith brick an Mordecai, their reasons where cemented in blood.

With the loss of their center, their beating heart. Roland .

Roland, who founded this place of blood and steel and cold cement. This place where no bullet is fired within its walls. Sanctuary. Where a person is still permitted the luxury of hope. Deeper within this place is its its nucleus, where the bloody red flag of the crimson lance is hung proudly for all to see. On the lower floor of the base are rows of bunks to the left and a make shift lab on the right. This is where Patricia Tannis natters on to herself as she ambles about her business, a mystery to anyone watching.

Beyond the bunks is a row of stairs that fold on themselves leading a person past a safe, a broken wall open to the sky and world below. Then past a yellow couch and lastly to a room filled with glowing green screens, a center console and a wide open balcony. The cement walls are littered with drawn on posters of various Hyperion propaganda, wanted posters of every known vault hunter and maps.

Today is unique. Today this room is near empty. Lilith is nowhere in sight on a mission of her own, brick has returned to his own place where he can control the bandits in the area. Salvador Axton and Zero all out on assigned missions, leaving behind only Maya and Mordecai to watch as grainy security footage flickers on the green tinted screens. Its odd, how quiet she is as she walks across the floor, picking the various fliers scattered across the counter and stacking them up neatly in a corner, placing a broken echo recorder on top.

She hasn't asked a question, or even really looked in his direction. No idle chit chat, nothing to fill in the silence of the room. Usually someone is rambling about something, if Lilith is trying to map things out, putting together missions than Axton is there making bad jokes and generally awkward statements. Salvador , is easy enough to talk to, to get along with. Zero, has never been left on security. This is the first time he has been left alone with Maya, not really sure what he expected. For a moment Mordecai glances across the flickering green screens, nothing out of place, he looks over and watches her eyes glaze over as her vision scans over the screens.

Is she bored? Her eyes flutter for a moment as she snaps herself out of whatever train of thought she had been stewing in. she walks away and sits on the counter, her chest rises as she inhales deeply. Exhaling slowly through her nose, a continuous effort to calm herself.

Mayas head snaps up, her mind quickly focused on the here and now at the unexpected sound of a bottle hissing and popping open. Mordecai can't help the smirk that appears when he catches the way she went for the gun hanging off her hip. Her expression, one of shock- makes him snort. The frown that appears makes him snicker over the lip of his bottle. Maya works her jaw for a moment before going back to busying herself by organizing the various papers on the long counter.

" whats got you so worked up huh chica?"

She looks boredly over her shoulder at him before sighing to herself and turning to face him. She leans backward against the edge of the counter, gripping the edges of it loosely on either side of herself.

" I'm not worked up, I'm perfectly calm."

Her heel begins bouncing in place, a mild rhythm echoing off the floor.

With a short laugh and a lopsided grin Mordecai pulls his goggles off his face lets them rest on the top of the red wrapped around his hair.

"so your just twitchy?"

She gives a dull glare.

"no I'm... just not used to so much nothing."

He takes swig of discolored alcohol and waits for her to continue.

" nothings exploding, there's nothing to shoot and you're not trying to eat anything off the floor."

In the back of his mind Mordecai idly recalls her slapping things out of Salvador's hands on a regular basis. The way she always seemed to be forcing the lot of them into the showers whenever they where at the base. On the off chance that they did spend the night here, she was always moving, disassembling her guns and cleaning the parts before putting them back together.

"You gotta calm down. You'll make yourself crazy like that"

He recalls being that way, needing to be doing something. When his guns where polished and his machete sharpened, he would clean blood wings feathers and by that point he would finally be ready to sleep.

"the last time I was this still I-"

Her mouth clamps shut, her eyes go wide and dark. He can see a storm threaten behind the blue at this memory. In her own mind she can hear herself screaming and screeching. Feel her hands slamming into the ragged stone walls, can feel panic welling up her throat. He watches her long curved lashes flutter away the memories that plague her. She looks away from him.

"I don't like being still."

Mordecai finds her looking over to him even her face is aimed at the floor. He holds out his bottle for her. It seems to take a moment for her to look up at him fully, a moment more for her to take a step out and lean over to take the bottle from him.

She wrinkles her nose at the smell, but takes a drink anyway. Foul. He smirks at her expression of near horror as he unscrews the top of his flask. He raises his drink to her, pointing with one gloved finger.

" you know the only thing worse than the taste is the after taste."

He watches her work her jaw around as she tries to ignore the taste.

"why do you drink this?"

" it's safer than the water."

She nods in acceptance, then looks up at the underside of the screens. She can't actually she whats going on from where she is, with a sigh she walks over from her place and hops up to sit on edge of the center console. After a quick scan of the various nothing happening the individual screens Maya goes back to the conversation at hand.

" why don't you guys just filter the water, it's tedious but its better than drinking the sludge that comes out of the faucets."

He grins when she absent mindedly takes another drink. A poker face aside from her lip twitching .

" how do you plan to filter mud?"

" I go to the middle of the lakes and take a pot of the water there, then I find a good spot and boil the fuck out of it."

"so you drink hot mud? And you think beers gross."

Maya glares into the bottle she keeps sipping before answering.

" I don't drink the stuff that stays in the pot. I drink the vapor that condenses on the lid."

" that seems like a lot of work for a lot of nothing."

" yea, usually. Unless I have good while to spare. Normally I just go near overlook. The water in the stream nearby is pretty safe."

Mordecai finds himself watching the back of her heel tap against the side of the console. She catches him looking and quickly stops, these are things she doesn't notice, things that Axton and zero got accustomed to, that Salvador never noticed. She wonders if the noise is annoying to Mordecai, like it was to zero and Axton.

"sorry"

"mmm?"

" I can't really help it."

"I don't mind, but you have to learn to relax. Otherwise your gonna wind up frying your nerves when your nerves are shot it goes to your head and then..."

Tannis screaming obscenities at her newest friend can be heard from downstairs. The chair had no response.

Mordecai arcs an eyebrow at her.

" that happens. If your lucky."

" how is that lucky?"

"tannis is has a very strong mind, but she herself, not so much. If you have too much going on... up here"

He taps the side of his head.

"well, how do you think we get psycho's?"

"cannibalism"

"what leads to cannibalism?"

"..."

" I just don't want you to... have a melt down at the wrong time."

" but you want me to have a meltdown?"

"yes."

"wait what?"

She blinks at him taken aback by the bluntness of the statement. Her brow furrows and her grip on the neck of the bottle tightens.

" you WANT me to have a break down?!"

The accusation bounces off the walls and rings in his ears, he sighs calmly crossing his ankle over his knee.

" we all do- did. It keeps us sane. we're only human and we can only take so much before it becomes more than we can handle on our own."

She remains furious, but silent. Inhaling deeply, her grip on the bottle slackens and her posture loosens. Again she looks away from his far to knowing gaze.

"right.."

" see, that right there- you gotta stop it."

He puts his foot down on the floor leaning forward to look at her closely with his hands on his knees.

" I'm pissing you off and your just bottling it up. If you keep doing that you're gonna flip at the the wrong person- if you're pissed at me TELL ME! Get mad! Go on- be pissed YELL AT ME!"

This time when he looks at her, her eyes are wide and focused. So far from furious, more like a deer- terrified and confused. Exhaling heavily as he leans back in his chair, he runs his hand over his head- pulling off the red cloth.

" I... don't want to. To yell at you, I don't have a reason to be mad at you. You're just... trying to help and that's more kindness than I've seen... ever really. I shouldn't be mad for that, what a stupid reason."

" that doesn't matter- you don't need a reason to feel something. You just feel it. If you feel something, most of the time its fine- its okay. If you keep trying to damn things up, eventually its gonna break. These things never happen at a good time- it's always at the worst possible time."

"for you..."

" yea, I was lucky though, we all where. We had Roland to be our... our pillar. He warned me you know, about her."

Mordecai points with his chin in the direction of Sanctuary's only bar. The place with flickering neon purple lights and small red heart tattooed on the woman that shattered his. Maya find herself very focused, on him. The crestfallen expression on his tired face, she wonders if its there because he's still hurt, or if he misses Roland. In truth its both.

" She was a bad choice at a bad time. I really shouldn't have been thinking like that I guess. But you know, gets lonely here, we all know she's real...inviting. Its not like she made me think I would be anything special to her, I don't know where that idea came from. I suppose I'm just that way. After her, the underdome I had some missions to run on. I just focused on those, when they where done and I just had time to think. I didn't want to- so I did everything, anything really. Took any and every little job available. Eventually it couldn't stop thinking about it. And I couldn't focus when it really mattered. Willhelm. Through that whole thing, jack was laughing and in my head he was laughing at me. When everything was over- I just needed an outlet, a way to vent. I wound up just screaming at Roland, even swung at him. You know what he did?"

Maya makes no sound, she sits on the very edge of the console and waits, her whole body stiff and still.

"he just took it. When I had nothing left, he put his, big heavy fuckin' arm over my shoulder and said ' it's okay'... I never felt so stupid and weak in my whole life."

Mordecai is surprisingly calm as he speaks, the words flowing as if they weren't just salt in a wound. Although its difficult salt a wound that's healing over. His voice is solemn and his expression rather nostalgic.

After taking a slow drink from the near empty flask he continues.

" It was after all that he started keeping here at base, tried to, teach me how to calm down some. Always said I was too wound up. One thing he told me is that you can't calm down if your mind is frenzied."

Mordecai smirks idly as he looks out the open balcony.

" I know, that the guy's, they're your team, your friends... but I can see it. They're not where you are, they may not get it. Understand where you're coming from. I can see you, I can see it in the way you move. You've seen some shit, I know it's weighing on you. Everything you do, I can see it all piling up. You must feel guilty, about it, this. Especially her."

His eyes wander over to the vault key floating in the little bubble by the door.

When his gaze finds itself on her again, panic is painted all over her face and burned in her stiff muscles.

" I – I -"

She keeps opening her mouth to speak, but her voice keeps sticking in her throat. After a moment of near hyper ventilation she forces the words out of herself.

" I don't... really know how to relax. It's just not something we where I guess allowed to do."

" on athenas?"

" yea?"

" you couldn't have been busy all the time."

" anyone who was part of the order was always required to be doing something."

"how could they have kept you busy all the time?"

" they said only devils wish you to be idle, for in idleness you can rot and become a devil yourself."

Maya look over and finds Mordecai somewhere between disbelief and disgust.

" if they find you have been been claimed by a devil... you must then be...exorcised..."

Mordecai looks at her with slowly dawning realization.

"it is... difficult. Brother Sophis said, that devilry was confirmed when the demon in you screamed for release. If you where strong enough in the faith, than the eye of the storm would give you strength enough to see through the trials silently."

Mordecai watches as she clenched her eyes tightly shut at the memory.

"the first trial is the bed of nails in the crux of the maiden. A steel coffin in the shape of the first saint, inside it is lined with long spikes. You are placed in it, to reenact her fall from the cliffs, how she kept herself pure. After three days in the maiden you are removed and submitted to the second trial.

To be hung by your ankle on the red tree, if you a devil is there- it sees with lust and greed, the crows will pluck out these eyes with tainted vision and sacrifice their own purity by eating them and ridding the world of their filth.

If in three hours you still keep your vision than you are permitted the honor of the third trial.

As all demons are born of fire, they- can be snuffed out with water. Your body is placed on a small circular steel cage and plunged into the coldest water Athenas can give. You are submerged repeatedly, each time you go down you are held down a moment longer. The submerging continues until you are silenced. If you have gone through your trials in silence, than you are permitted a meal and then to return to work. For me I was permitted to return to training.

I can't help it, now when there's nothing to be done, I need to just find something."

Mordecai looks at her with somber eyes as he reaches out and gently places his hand on her face, brushing her hair behind her ear as he did so. As she looks at him from under her lashes he realizes, she isn't mad that they did it, just that it was a lie. She could forgive someone who genuinely believed that they where doing was right, not some one who was using a person as an example to all the others.

Twenty seven years of lies, in her mind she clings tightly to the last few moment in this room, where she has received more honesty than any where at any time in her whole life.

Even here.

Axton told half truths.

zero said nothing at all.

salvador avoided subjects.

Angel lied all together, even if it wasn't her fault.

Maya found herself leaning into the touch, not wanting to let it go. She placed her hand over his glove, her other hand she placed on his wrist. The small bit of exposed flesh, warm to the touch. There was never a reason for her to mention this before, just talking about brought back the feeling of panic and horror that was there to begin with. However now there was something different, this time there was a warm body in front of her, a loose comforting embrace wrapped around her.

And there it was.

That wall came crumbling down in wave after wave of hot tears that stung her eyes, streaked down her face and landed on Morty's chest. He placed his chin over her head, rubbing gentle circles between her shoulder blades as she clung to him.

A few hours later Lilith Axton and Salvador all marched up the stairs at various paces and volumes of stomping. They argues amongst each other until they all heard a stage whispered.

"sssshhhh"

All three found themselves looking at Mordecai with his feet kicked up on the center console, Maya sitting in his lap asleep on his chest. Lilith arcs an eyebrow, then notices glittering wet eyelashes on Maya. Mordecai takes a swig of the beer Maya left unfinished while Lilith grabs Axton and Salvador both by their ears and drags them back downstairs.

Mordecai watches them exit and idly runs his fingers through Mayas hair. She lays against him calm and quiet and as he looks down at the side her face he smiles

'beautiful'

a/n.: so feedback anyone?


End file.
